Mixed Metaphors - The Winepress vs. the Threshing Floor

SCRIPTURE ALONE WAS THE CRY OF THE REFORMATION

We need to return to saying only what God is saying... 

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own, but speak exactly what the Father has taught Me.  John 8:28 

Once the Roman church left the safe harbor of saying precisely what God said. Protestants may follow the same slippery path unless we guard our thoughts and words. The cry of the protestant movement was Scripture Alone! But we have adopted many traditions of the Roman Church. 

I heard a popular new song sung recently - While the lyrics of this song paint a compelling picture and I can agree with some of the sentiments. It is confusing when lyrics contradict Scripture and can cause confusion. Because people sing the songs perhaps more often than they read the Scriptures firsthand. 

Here are the lyrics that caused me some consternation. 

Verse 1:

In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making new wine...

The lyrics in the verse of this song seem to suggest that God crushes His children like grapes in His winepress to extract new wine from them. If you follow this metaphor to its logical conclusion new wine comes from the saints when God tramples them under His feet, since that is how wine is made. 

Relating the purification of the Saints to crushing grapes in the winepress misrepresents the words spoken by God. How do we know? We look directly at Scripture which states, that the crushing of God's people does not produce new wine but rather it produces purified wheat. 

My people who are crushed on the threshing floor,  

I tell you what I have heard from the LORD Almighty, from the God of Israel. Isaiah 21:10

We could change just a couple of words in this verse to be more biblically accurate, consider this... 

Verse 1: 

In the crushing

In the pressing threshing
You are making new wine purging your bride, the bride, or the church/or the body

As far as I can tell from Scripture the warning of putting new wine in old wineskins articulates the necessity for the bodily resurrection of the saints.

Verse 1: (continued)

...In the soil, I now surrender, You are breaking new ground.

The second half of the verse is a biblical metaphor, one of surrender and of breaking up the fallow ground to produce an abundant harvest. This indicates brokenness, confession, and repentance - leading not only to personal salvation (the theme of the Spring Feasts). But also to a multiplication only available when the kernel of WHEAT that falls to the ground dies.  This part of the song resonates with me and we see the Scriptural context of wheat. 

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat, having fallen into the ground, should die, it abides alone; but if it should die, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

Scripture uses the metaphor of threshing wheat when referring to the sanctification/purification process of His people. Scripture uses this same metaphor for both the Old Covenant people of God and for the New Covenant Church. It is applied expressly to the Church and the Church age when we look at the prophetic fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks and the harvest of wheat that follows. 

The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) in late Spring, was held at the start of the wheat harvest. Its fulfillment marked the birth of the New Covenant Church. 

John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  

His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Luke 3:16-17

The wheat harvest continues from the Feast of Weeks until the Feast of Trumpets, also the first day of the fall season. The ministry of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of Fire will continue to purify His ekklesia right up to the Day of Christ Jesus. The fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets is the day the last trump sounds and the ekklesia is caught up.

"being persuaded of this very thing, that the One having begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."  

Phillipians 1:6 

In Scripture, the winepress (where grapes were trampled or crushed) always signified the wrath of God poured out upon the unbelieving. Crushing the grapes to make wine takes place at the very end of the harvest season each year. (The Fall Feasts) Its prophetic fulfillment will take place on the Day of Atonement. On the great and terrible day of the Lord. When Jesus will judge the Nations. Here is that winepress metaphor used in Scripture...

"I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained. 

I have trodden down the peoples in My anger,
Made them drunk in My fury, And brought down their strength to the earth.” Isaiah 63: 3, 6

In contrast to wheat, the harvest of grapes (New Wine) came in the fall - the wine press comes at the Feast of Ingathering, Prophetically looking forward to the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement - God's Judgment of the unbelieving nations - not reflecting the sanctification or re-sanctification of His Church. here is another use of the winepress metaphor. 

The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. Revelation 14:19-20 

There are only four verses in the New Testament where New Wine is mentioned, and three of the four instances recount the same conversation.  Let's take a look at them. 

1. Jesus warns that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins. (in Matthew, Mark & Luke) https://biblehub.com/commentaries/mark/2-22.htm
2. The account of the events which took place on the day of Pentecost (Feast of Weeks) when mockers said these men are full of new wine. The Greek word used in this passage is Strong's #1098 gleukos. Which means sweet new wine or unfermented grape juice...  how could they be drunk on new wine? This was not logical because the first week of the third month would have been too early to have 'new' sweet (unfermented) wine even if taken from the earliest grape harvest. It would have to be wine made from grapes during the previous fall harvest which would make it aged or fermented wine? If it were unfermented for several months without refrigeration in a Middle Eastern climate it would be undrinkable. 
3. Jesus said, He was the vine and we are the branches, so who are the grapes? 

We need to return to Scripture itself - Scripture tells us who is trampled under His feet... and it is not His children! It is His enemies who are put under His feet. 

In fact, the last enemy to be trampled under His feet is Death  As far as I can tell from Scripture the warning of putting new wine in old wineskins articulates the necessity for the bodily resurrection of the saints. Which is proclaimed by the Feast of Trumpets which comes each year at the time of the wine harvest in the Fall. The fulfillment of this feast is the first resurrection of the saints and the beginning of the great tribulation = the winepress of God's wrath. 

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.  

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:50-57

One year ago I posted about Gideon threshing grain in the winepress.  

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Various writings from the past
The Road Not Taken
At Home In MN